Legendary Sag Harbor Coach Bob Vishno Dies at 93

Fred W. Thiele Jr. has a strong, undeniable handshake. Jeff Peters is never late but, rather, always 15 minutes early, as a sign of respect. And Bobby Vacca, who was once rudderless, has led a full life after high school — after one man took it upon himself to save it.

They each have Bob Vishno to thank.

To generations of Pierson High School students, he was a teacher and a coach. To some, he was a father figure and a friend. To all, he was a mentor, an example of how to move through the world.

And he lives on through what he taught them.

On Friday, March 7, Vishno died of natural causes at his longtime home in Sag Harbor, with his daughter, Dana Truxillo, by his side. He was 93.

“The most important life lessons that I learned were either on a basketball court or a baseball field, and they were taught by Bob Vishno,” Thiele said. “To me, the measure of his success was not wins and losses. It was the quality of the young men and women that he helped to produce.”

Robert Vishno was born on September 22, 1931, in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up less than 10 miles away in Branford. He lived in a three-story, multi-generational home with his family, Truxillo said, where he enjoyed gardening with his grandfather and very quickly fell in love with sports.

Throughout high school, he played football, baseball and basketball, and won eight varsity letters. Ahead of graduation, he was voted “Most Athletic” by his classmates — which was fitting, considering his senior quote: “Youth is full of sport.”

“Bob is an all-around fellow with a great sense of humor and a smile that always turns a girl’s head,” Truxillo said with a laugh, reading from her father’s senior bio.

But there was one girl in particular who turned Vishno’s head — Lillian Lekas — and it was while he was on a double date with her friend. “He was Lithuanian and he wanted to marry a Lithuanian, and Mom was it,” Truxillo said. “Mom was the one.”

They married on Valentine’s Day in 1952 — after Vishno had continued his education at Milford Prep, followed by a football scholarship to the University of Colorado. He would later earn his bachelor’s degree in 1956 and his master’s degree in 1960 from Southern Connecticut State University, where he played three seasons of varsity football.

He was also a three-year varsity golf member and captain in his senior year, and went on to play semi-pro football for Branford Laurels and Roesslers of New Haven.

“Ironically, football was his sport,” Thiele said. “And, of course, Pierson was so small, we didn’t have a football team.”

The Vishnos interviewed at the Sag Harbor School District together and, ultimately, landed jobs — he as a fifth grade teacher and she for third grade. But they very nearly didn’t make it, after vastly underestimating the distance between the Orient Point ferry and the village. “They originally thought they could walk to Sag Harbor from there,” Truxillo said. “Luckily, someone gave them a ride.”

Their 31-year tenure, from 1956 to 1987, is legendary to this day, according to former students. She embodied “tender, loving care,” according to Vacca, while he was all about “tough love.” “And they both got results,” he said.

In 1978, Vishno led the Pierson boys basketball team to victory at the State Class C Championship — the first and only win of that magnitude to this day. He coached several sports on the junior varsity and varsity levels in basketball, baseball and golf — “He literally coached me in every high school sport I ever played,” Thiele said — and won Coach of the Year honors in each as part of the New York State Coaches Association.

His players knew him as big, burly, disciplined and strong, but also generous, caring and kind. He embodied the role of a coach, with the catchphrases he’d yell when the moment struck, and understood how to play to a team’s strengths.

“He was from central casting,” Thiele said. “If Gene Hackman hadn’t played the basketball coach in the movie ‘Hoosiers,’ it would have been Bob Vishno. That guy, he looked the part and he sounded the part.”

Vishno was a clear communicator and fair, and inspired every student to be their best, both on and off the field or court. For Thiele, that ranged from mastering his handshake — “He said, ‘Don’t give me a dead fish — shake my hand!’” he recalled with a laugh — to steering him down the right path in life.

It was his senior year, Thiele said, and he was “doing some things that I shouldn’t be doing.” Basketball had lost its allure, he said, and he skipped tryouts.

“Almost as soon as things started, I realized I had made a mistake, and I went and talked with him about it,” he said. “I just remember him with me — a kid that was kind of finding his way and wandered off the path. He could have said, ‘Hey, tryouts are over. Have a nice day.’ He let me join the team, and I had a great season.

“But I just remember about giving people second chances when they make a mistake, and that stuck with me,” he continued. “The measure of his success was really the wisdom that he imparted about life to the people that he coached — and we were all richer for having been coached by him.”

After retiring from Pierson in 1987, Vishno taught golf at the Poxabogue golf course, and was a sports director and golf instructor for Cunard Cruise Line for 17 years. He and his wife — who were married for 71 years before her death last year — saw the world together, having raised their three children.

As a father, he was enthusiastic, energetic, resourceful and frugal. He believed in the value of education and was willing to take risks. He pushed his children to be good people, Truxillo said, “morally and mentally.”

She said she will miss “just about everything” about her father.

In addition to Truxillo, Vishno is survived by his daughter, Mary Beth Armstrong, five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. His son, Robert Vishno Jr., died in July 1987 at age 21 following a car accident.

“I remember when Bob lost his son, Bob — it was around the same time my mother died — and you’d see that poor man in church heaving, his shoulders bent over, praying, and he’d be sobbing,” his former student, Brad Beyer, said. “You really felt the weight of someone’s sorrow and he wasn’t afraid to show it. He wasn’t afraid to give you a hug. He wasn’t afraid to smack you if you weren’t right.”

Vacca learned that lesson the hard way. After graduating high school, he was scrimmaging with some of Vishno’s students, serving as a distraction from his indecision in life.

“When he had had enough, he took me up against the wall, he lifted me off the floor with his two strong hands, and he looked me dead in the eye, and he said, ‘There’s nothing more pathetic than wasted talent, and if you’re going to waste your talent, you’re not going to waste it in my gym,’” he said.

Vishno had already set up an interview for Vacca with the head basketball coach at Quinnipiac College, he said — “and I wound up having an outstanding career, at least they tell me.”

“That was all due to Coach Vishno not tolerating wasted talent, which is a good philosophy,” Vacca said, “and he knew that the best way to get through to me was to just cut through all the confusion. And ever since then, I’ve been thanking him to this moment.”

In his coach’s final months, Peters stopped by his Sag Harbor home every day, whether they ate oysters or drank vanilla milkshakes — Vishno’s favorites — or they simply sat on the back porch in the hot sun.

“A legend is gone,” Peters said, “but not from our hearts, that’s for sure, or our values.”

Those values span generations. Last year, Beyer prepared his grandson, Grayson, for the Vishno handshake. He nailed it on the first try, his proud grandfather said.

“I have this vision of Coach Vishno going to heaven and being at the pearly gates with St. Peter — and St. Peter better not give him a dead fish,” Thiele said. “He better give him a strong handshake.”